On August 1, 1914, four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, two more great European powers—Russia and Germany—declare war on each other; the same day, France orders a general mobilization. The so-called “Great War” that ensued would be one of unprecedented destruction and loss of life, resulting in the deaths of some 20 million soldiers and civilians and the physical devastation of much of the European continent.

The event that was widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I occurred on July 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was shot to death with his wife by the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. Over the weeks that followed, Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack, hoping to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Slavic nationalism in the tumultuous Balkans region once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austria-Hungary declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention. This assurance came on July 5; Austria-Hungary subsequently sent an ultimatum to the Serbian government on July 23 and demanded its acceptance within two days at the risk of war. Though Serbia accepted all but two of the ultimatum’s terms, and Russia declared its intention to back Serbia in the case of such a conflict, Austria-Hungary went ahead with its war declaration against Serbia on July 28, one month after the assassinations.

With that declaration, the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers was shattered: Germany warned Russia, still only partially mobilized, that to continue to full mobilization against Austria-Hungary would mean war with Germany. While insisting that Russia immediately halt mobilization, Germany began its own mobilization; when the Russians refused the German demands, Germany declared war on the czarist empire on August 1. That same day, Russia’s ally, France, long suspicious of German aggression, began its own mobilization, urging Great Britain—the third member, along with France and Russia, of the Triple Entente alliance—to declare its support. A divided British government declined to do so initially, but events soon precipitated Britain’s move towards war as well. On August 2, the first German army units crossed into Luxembourg as part of a long-planned German strategy to invade France through neutral Belgium. France and Germany declared war against each other on August 3; that night, Germany invaded Belgium, prompting Great Britain to declare war on Germany.

For the most part, the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of war with jubilation. The great majority of people—within government and without—assumed that their country would be victorious within months, and could not envision the possibility of a longer conflict. By the end of 1914, however, well over a million soldiers of various nationalities had been killed on the battlefields of Europe, and there was no final victory in sight for either the Allies or the Central Powers. On the Western Front—the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium—the combatants settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition, which would continue, in Europe and other corners of the world, for the next four years.
http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?month=10272960&day=10272966&cat=worldwari_________________Met hart en ziel
De enige echte

1 August, 1914: The German Declaration of War on Russia
(July 19th Russian calendar)

Presented by the German Ambassador to St. Petersburg

The Imperial German Government have used every effort since the beginning of the crisis to bring about a peaceful settlement. In compliance with a wish expressed to him by His Majesty the Emperor of Russia, the German Emperor had undertaken, in concert with Great Britain, the part of mediator between the Cabinets of Vienna and St. Petersburg; but Russia, without waiting for any result, proceeded to a general mobilisation of her forces both on land and sea. In consequence of this threatening step, which was not justified by any military proceedings on the part of Germany, the German Empire was faced by a grave and imminent danger. If the German Government had failed to guard against this peril, they would have compromised the safety and the very existence of Germany. The German Government were, therefore, obliged to make representations to the Government of His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias and to insist upon a cessation of the aforesaid military acts. Russia having refused to comply with [not having considered it necessary to answer]* this demand, and having shown by this refusal [this attitude]* that her action was directed against Germany, I have the honour, on the instructions of my Government, to inform your Excellency as follows: --

His Majesty the Emperor, my august Sovereign, in the name of the German Empire, accepts the challenge, and considers himself at war with Russia.

On 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia. Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke was the German Commander in Chief, with General Headquarters at Koblenz. The Austro-Hungarians were still in the process of mobilizing. Their Commander in Chief was Archduke Friedrich, with Chief of Staff Field Marshall Conrad von Hoetzendorf.

The British Cabinet was still divided over what course to take. Foreign Minster Lord Edward Grey was seeking a last minute diplomatic solution. The German Ambassador in London sent Berlin two telegrams implying that Britain would remain neutral. Learning of this the Kaiser demanded that his generals stop preparations for a campaign in the West and turn to the East. Moltke informed him that this was now impossible. The British Cabinet, unwilling to send troops to France, now realized that a guarantee of 1839 to Belgium was at issue.

On 1 August, Russia small-arms factories were turning out only six rifles per day, although they had a capacity for 2,000 per day. Only a short time before the war Russia had depleted a part of her reserves by sending Serbia 120,000 rifles. Russia now had an industrial force of three million workers. During 1914 there were over 3,500 strikes, involving over 1.3 million workers. Most of these strikes were on the every eve of the war.

Upon the outbreak of the first World War the magazine “Illustrated London News” began to publish illustrated reports related entirely to the war and entitled it “The Illustrated War News”. This weekly magazine was reputed to have the largest number of Artist-correspondents reporting on the progress of the war. This volume covers the opening month of the war when the confidence that Allied superiority would overcome all threats was at its height. Photographs and drawings of the preparation for the conflict, as well as actual action, are shown along with details of the commanding officers and articles by the military thinkers of the day. A vivid portrayal of a time when the Cavalry Horse was considered a vital weapon of war.

The German Verdun offensive transformed the intent of the Somme attack; the French demanded that the planned date of the attack, 1 August 1916, be brought forward to 1 July, the aim chiefly being to divert German resources from Verdun in the defence of the Somme.

This letter from a local magistrate illustrates the tensions between authorities and civilians over the short supply of food in the city of Magdeburg. The resentments of urban consumers were first directed against farmers and middlemen. Later on, they were directed against wholesalers and merchants whose intervention only added to the prices paid by consumers. Local consumer organizations bridged religious and class divides, often forging group identities literally in the streets, where women queued up in front of shops and markets to buy precious supplies for their families. This ritual (often referred to as the “Polonaise”) mostly involved women, who inspired respect and fear from local officials.

“The women who stood nearest to the mayor and spoke with him were satisfied with the information that he gave them, while those who stood further away made catcalls. He [the mayor] attempted to inform the first group of women about the issues and to calm them down, as they assured him he had. The crowd then left; some are supposed to have said: “We’ll come back this afternoon.” The crowd knew that in the afternoon at 5:00 the city council was supposed to meet, and they apparently wanted to harass the city councilors as they arrived. However, because the meeting had begun at 4:00 in view of special circumstances, the crowd was unsuccessful in its efforts. Between 4 and 5 o’clock, crowds of people gathered, joined by teenaged boys and girls, including school children. According to a conservative estimate, the crowd grew to about 1,000 at 7 o’clock. There was continuous screaming and yelling; furthermore, insulting, sarcastic, sneering catcalls were hurled at the authorities, and it looked as if supplies of butter had ceded the main role to an appetite for scandal and mischief. Towards seven o’clock, the mayor emerged from the city hall and informed the women nearest him once again that the distribution of butter could not take place until next Saturday, for reasons that he also communicated to them. These women, too, said that they understood, but because the crowd standing behind them continued to scream and yell, he asked the women near him to convey this information to the others and to calm them down, which they promised to do; and he went back into the city hall. Between 7 and 8 the crowd diminished a bit – presumably people were eating dinner, but around 8.30 they appeared in significantly larger numbers and began to attack the house of a member of the board of the Tangermünde dairy, in whose cellar there were rumored to be four hundred kilograms of butter. Large rocks were torn out of the gutter, other rocks fetched from other streets, where they lay, and thrown at the house. By 11:00 in the evening, all the windows of the house had been broken. Someone even attempted to break down the door with large rocks. The police were powerless in the face of all this; some policemen were lightly injured by rocks. When the mayor left the city hall at 7:30, he was violently insulted as honey was thrown at him.”

Finally the military was called in, and, as the rumors circulated of their arrival, “the excitement of the crowd grew, and the attacks on the house became more violent, so it took the troops a half hour to drive the crowd away. As soon as they were driven off one street and the soldiers had turned around, the crowd followed them back, and it took the intervention of a Landsturm company to disperse the crowd. A number of people were arrested for malicious mischief as well as disturbing the peace. When the troops were present, shouts were heard that the riot would be repeated the same day and again later if there still were no butter. The crowd, which was at first made up only of working women, was composed towards the evening primarily of women, as well as young girls and teenaged boys – unfortunately a large number of schoolchildren, too. In addition, a number of shady elements showed up, who used the occasion to create a scandal. Even if the riot was initially due to the butter shortage, it took on the character of a demonstration as time passed.”

On 1 August 1917 Pope Benedict XV issued a seven-point peace plan to each of the belligerent nations. Ignored by most powers, only Austria-Hungary regarded it with any degree of seriousness.

To The Heads of the Belligerent Peoples

From the beginning of Our Pontificate, amidst the horrors of the terrible war unleashed upon Europe, We have kept before Our attention three things above all: to preserve complete impartiality in relation to all the belligerents, as is appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with equal affection; to endeavour constantly to do all the most possible good, without personal exceptions and without national or religious distinctions, a duty which the universal law of charity, as well as the supreme spiritual charge entrusted to Us by Christ, dictates to Us; finally, as Our peacemaking mission equally demands, to leave nothing undone within Our power, which could assist in hastening the end of this calamity, by trying to lead the peoples and their heads to more moderate frames of mind and to the calm deliberations of peace, of a "just and lasting" peace.

Whoever has followed Our work during the three unhappy years which have just elapsed, has been able to recognize with ease that We have always remained faithful to Our resolution of absolute impartiality and to Our practical policy of well-doing.

We have never ceased to urge the belligerent peoples and Governments to become brothers once more, even although publicity has not been given to all which We have done to attain this most noble end...

First of all, the fundamental point should be that for the material force of arms should be substituted the moral force of law; hence a just agreement by all for the simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be established to the degree necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of public order in each State; then, instead of armies, the institution of arbitration, with its lofty peacemaking function, according to the standards to be agreed upon and with sanctions to be decided against the State which might refuse to submit international questions to arbitration or to accept its decisions.

Once the supremacy of law has been established, let every obstacle to the ways of communication between the peoples be removed, by ensuring through rules to be fixed in similar fashion, the true freedom and common use of the seas. This would, on the one hand, remove many reasons for conflict and, on the other, would open new sources of prosperity and progress to all...

With regard to territorial questions, such as those disputed between Italy and Austria, and between Germany and France, there is ground for hope that in consideration of the immense advantages of a lasting peace with disarmament, the conflicting parties will examine them in a conciliatory frame of mind, taking into account so far as it is just and practicable, as We have said previously, the aspirations of the peoples and co-ordinating, according to circumstances, particular interests with the general good of the great human society.

The same spirit of equity and justice should direct the examination of other territorial and political questions, notably those relating to Armenia, the Balkan States, and the territories composing the ancient Kingdom of Poland, for which especially its noble historical traditions and the sufferings which it has undergone, particularly during the present war, ought rightly to enlist the sympathies of the nations.

Such are the principal foundations upon which We believe the future reorganization of peoples should rest. They are of a kind which would make impossible the recurrence of such conflicts and would pave the way for a solution of the economic question, so important for the future and the material welfare of all the belligerent States...

"LONDON, Both British and French troops gained further ground today along their new front in Belgium, in spite of the heavy rain, which, falling since early yesterday afternoon, has turned the battlefield into a sea of mud and rendered major operations impossible."

Description Stretcher bearers Passchendaele August 1917.jpg
IWM caption : Battle of Pilckem Ridge 31 July - 2 August : stretcher bearers struggle in mud up to their knees to carry a wounded man to safety near Boesinghe on 1 August. The look of agonised desperation on the men's faces has made this image a favourite choice to indicate the appalling conditions on the Western Front. FURTHER INFORMATION: Man third from left possibly identified as Jimmy Coates, who served with the 36 Ulster Division attached to the Field Ambulance Corps - information provided by his son in 2005.

Hefty bombardment at 3.50 a.m. on 31st. when the offensive opened. We got shelled a bit in the afternoon. An R.E. was killed amongst my party and several wounded. I had only one man wounded. Bother about rations which did not arrive until about 6.20 so that I had to march off leaving a party behind to bring them on. Moved up to the Ecole, Ypres. This is where a whole company of the Camerons were gassed a few days previously. No shelling at this time. Heard we had taken the Green Line but that the Division on the right had failed us - I got astonishing confirmation of this later from McClure who had to shoot some of the beggars to prevent them running back. Reported to Menin Gate for duty with my party. Found we were not wanted until 4 a.m.

Wed. 1st. Aug. My H.Q. are in the Ecole. The men are in a cellar, indescribably filthy, with an awful odour and three inches deep in water. Here they have to rest, sleep and eat if they can. I should be down with them but preferred risking it above ground in a tin hut (which was constantly being shelled) behind a broken down wall. A pip-squeak could have finished it and me.

I've read so many descriptions in newspapers of the ruin and desolation caused in this war. Famous literary men have tried their powers of description and All (with the possible exception of Gilbert Frankau) have failed to convey the repulsiveness and awfulness of the scene. The Ecole was one of these places - That's all!

STRETCHER BEARING

Began work at 3.15 a.m. - a cheerless hour. It was raining I think. Moved up. Searched ground up to Blue Line. Terrific rain, heavy and prolonged. Ground churned up. We could scarcely move one foot after the other. Our job was to carry down wounded. This is my first job as a bearer. I hope to goodness it is my last - prefer going over the top.

Heard about the Battalion. MacCallum killed. I'll have to write to his girl. Also Leitch and D.R.Cameron, Gray and Robinson and Sinclair wounded. We took Green Line but had to retire on our right, as that flank was in the air. Division on our right driven back. Losses not apparently heavier than we expected. Huns well prepared for us. You can't lay out ferro-concrete blockhouses with anything less than a 12 inch gun. And we never see them.

APPEAL FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING MASSES
OF ENGLAND, AMERICA, FRANCE, ITALY, AND JAPAN ON ALLIED INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA

1 August 1918

Workers! Like a vicious dog let off the leash, the entire capitalist press of your countries is howling for the 'intervention' of your Governments in Russian affairs, shrieking, 'now or never!' But even at this moment, when these hirelings of your exploiters have dropped their masks and are clamouring for an attack on the workers and peasants of Russia, even at this moment they lie unscrupulously, and shamelessly deceive you. For while threatening 'intervention' in Russian affairs, they are already conducting military operations against workers' and peasants' Russia.

On the Murmansk Railway which they have seized the Anglo-French bandits are already shooting Soviet workers. In the region of the Urals they are breaking up the workers' Soviets and shooting their representatives, using for this purpose the Czecho-Slovak troops, which are maintained at the expense of the French people and commanded by French officers.

Complying with the orders of your Governments, they are cutting off the Russian people from their food supplies, in order to force the workers and peasants to put their necks once more into the halter of the Paris and London Stock Exchanges. The present open attack of FrancoEnglish capital on the workers of Russia is only the culmination of eight months' long underground struggle against Soviet Russia. From the first day of the October revolution, from the moment when the workers and peasants of Russia declared that they would no longer shed either their own or other people's blood for the sake of Russian or foreign capital, from the first day that they overthrew their exploiters and appealed to you to follow their example, to put an end to the universal slaughter, to put an end to exploitation-from that moment your exploiters vowed that they would destroy this country, in which the workers had dared for the first time in the history of humanity to throw off the yoke of capitalism, to get their necks out of the noose of war. Your Governments supported the Ukrainian Rada against the workers and peasants of Russia, that same Rada which sold itself to German imperialism and called in the help of German bayonets against the Ukrainian workers and peasants; they supported the Rumanian oligarchy, that same oligarchy which, by attacking on our south-western front, helped to destroy the defensive power of Russia. For hard cash their agents bought over that same General Krasnov who now, acting in concert with the German military authorities, is trying to cut Russia off from the coal of the Donetz and the grain of the Kuban, to render it a defenceless victim of German and Russian capital. They gave moral and financial support to the right wing of the Social-Revolutionary Party, that party of traitors to the revolution, who rose arms in hand against the workers' and peasants' Government.

But when they saw that all their attempts were unsuccessful, when it became clear that hired bandits were an insufficient force, they decided to sacrifice you too, and they are now openly attacking Russia, flinging the workers and peasants of France and England into the firing line.

You who, in the interests of capital, are shedding your blood, at the Marne and on the Aisne, in the Balkans, in Syria, and in Mesopotamia, you are to die also in the snows of north Finland and on the mountains of the Ural.

In the interests of capital you are to play the part of the executioner of the Russian workers' revolution.

To conceal the true nature of this crusade against the Russian workers' revolution your capitalists tell you that it is being undertaken not against the Russian revolution, but against German imperialism, to which they claim we have sold ourselves. The falsehood and hypocrisy of this assertion will become clear to every one of you once you examine the following facts:

1. We had to sign the Brest treaty, which dismembers Russia, precisely because your Governments ' knowing full well that Russia was unable to carry on the war any longer, refused to participate in international peace negotiations where their strength would have saved Russia and given you an acceptable peace. It was not Russia, bled white as it had been for three and a half years, that betrayed your cause; it was your own Governments that flung Russia under the heel of German imperialism.

2. When we were forced to sign the Brest peace treaty because the masses of our people were unable to carry on the war any longer, and when the agents of your Governments, on many occasions, tried to draw us back into the war, assuring us that Germany would not allow us to remain at peace, our press replied: If Germany destroys the peace which we have bought at such great sacrifice, if it raises its hand against the Russian revolution, then we will defend ourselves. If the Allies wish to help us in our sacred cause of defence, then let them help us to repair our railways, to set our economic affairs in order, for an economically weak Russia cannot seriously defend itself. But the Allies did not reply to these appeals of ours. Their only thought was how to pump out of us the interest due on the old loans which French capital had advanced to Tsarism in order to draw the Tsar's Government into the war, and which the Russian people have long since redeemed by a sea of blood and mountains of corpses.

3. Not only did the Allies do nothing to help us to re-establish our capacity for defence; as we have already shown, they tried to destroy it by all the means in their power, increasing the internal disorganization, cutting us off from the last of our food reserves.

4. The Allies warned us that the Germans would seize the Siberian and Murmansk railways, the last two direct lines outside German control which connected us with the rest of the world; but in the end these lines were seized not by Germany, who was too far off to do so, but by our heroic Allies. In the Murmansk district and in Siberia the Allies are fighting not the Germans, who are not there, but Russian workers, whose Soviets they are everywhere destroying.

Everything that the press of your capitalists and their agents say in justification of the savage assault upon Russia is nothing but hypocrisy, intended to conceal the facts of the case. It is for other purposes that they are preparing their campaign against Russia. They have three aims in view: their first aim is the seizure of as much Russian territory as possible so that its wealth and its railways can be used to secure payment to French and English capital of the interest on loans; their second aim is the suppression of the workers' revolution for fear that it may inspire you, and show you how to throw off the yoke of capitalism. Their third aim is to create a new eastern front so as to divert German forces from the western front to Russian territory.

The agents of your capitalists declare that this will weaken the pressure of the German legions on you and hasten the moment of victory over German imperialism. They lie: they were unable to defeat Germany when a great Russian army was fighting, which gave the Allies numerical superiority; how much less are they able to secure victory on the field of battle now that the Russian army is only just being created. German imperialism can only be defeated when the imperialism of all States is defeated by the united onslaught of the world's proletariat. Not by carrying on the war, but by bringing it to an end, shall we achieve this object. Then both you and the German workers will be freed of the fear of the foreign bourgeoisie and its plans of conquest: the ending of the war of nations and the beginning of the international civil war-the war of the exploited against the exploiters-will finally put an end to all kinds of injustice, social as well as national.

The attempts to draw Russia into war will not save you from bloodshed; they can only endanger the Russian workers, the Russian workers' and peasants' revolution-and nobody wants this more than the leaders of the German military party, who, being close neighbours to the Russian revolu tion, are more afraid than anybody else of its inflammatory sparks. By acting as the docile tools of your Governments in their criminal conspiracy against Russia, you, the workers of France and England, America and Italy, become the executioners of the workers' revolution.

The descendants of the Communards are to play the part of assistants to Gallifet. This is the role your masters are assigning to you, workers of France. The sons of the English workers who rose in a body when the English textile barons wanted to come to the aid of the American slaveowners are now to play the part of executioners of the Russian revolution-that is the depth of degradation to which your rulers want to bring you. You, workers of America, who always detested the despotism of the Tsars, you are now, at the bidding of the trust kings, to help in erecting a new Tsarism in Russia. This is the real issue, working men of America. And you, workers of Italy, you who followed with enthusiasm every manifestation of the proletarian war for emancipation, they want to make you share in the counter-revolutionary campaign against workers' Russia!

The workers of Russia stretch out their hands to you, proletarians of the Allied countries!

These men whose hands reek with the blood of the workmen of Kem, of Samara, of Tomsk, shot at the command of the leaders of the Murmansk landing, these organizers of the Czecho-Slovak rebellion, these are the people who cry that under German orders we are breaking the bonds which unite us to the peoples of France, England, Italy, America, and Belgium.

Too long have we calmly endured the mockery of the representatives of Allied imperialism; we allow people who once licked the boots of Tsarism to remain in Russia although they do not recognize the workers' Government. We took no reprisals against them, although the hand of their military missions was visible in every counter-revolutionary plot. And even now, after it has been proved that French officers are leading the Czecho-Slovaks, after the outrages in Murmansk, even now we have not protested by a single word against the presence of your diplomats on the territory of the Soviet Russia which they have not recognized. We have only requested their removal from Vologda to Moscow, so that we might protect them from attempts on their lives by people whom their misdeeds have moved to the deepest indignation.

We acted in this way only because we did not want to give them an excuse to tell you that we are breaking with you. And now, after the departure of the Allied Ambassadors, not a single hair will fall from the head of the peaceful citizens of your countries in our midst, who abide by the laws of the workers' and peasants' Republic. But we are convinced that should we retort to every blow of the rapacious 'Allies' by two blows, you would regard our action not only as legitimate defence, but also as the defence of your own interests, for the salvation of the Russian revolution is the common interest of the proletariat of all countries. We are certain that every measure taken against those who on Russian territory hatch plots against the Russian revolution will meet with your sincere sympathy, for these plots are directed against you as well as against us. Driven to fight Allied capitalism, which wishes to add new fetters to those fastened on us by German imperialism, we turn to you with the call:

Long live the solidarity of the workers of the world!

Long live the solidarity of the proletariat of France, England, America, and Italy, with the Russian proletariat!

Down with the bandits of international imperialism, long live the international revolution!

Sir HERBERT NIELD asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider favourably the claims of non-commissioned officers who re-enlisted at the outbreak of war, but who were kept in England to assist in training the men of the New Armies, to receive the 1914 Star, seeing that they would have accompanied their battalions overseas but for their compulsory detention for the purpose named?

Mr. CHURCHILL The 1914 Star was granted in recognition of services rendered under the command of Lord French in France and Belgium during the earlier phase of the War in 1914. It is not proposed to extend the conditions governing the award of the Star.

The Police Strikes of 1918 and 1919 resulted in the British government putting before Parliament its proposals for a Police Act, which established the Police Federation of England and Wales as the representative body for the police. The Act also barred police from belonging to a trade union or affiliating with any other trade union body. This Act, drafted and passed into law, was as a direct response to the emergence of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers (NUPPO). A successful police strike in 1918 and another strike in June 1919 led to the suppression of the union by the government. On 1 August 1919, the Police Act of 1919 passed into law. Only token opposition from a minority of Labour Members of Parliament was voiced in Parliament.

King George wires to Tsar that Germany recommended British proposals to Austria on 30 July, but that Russian mobilisation was reported during Austrian Cabinet meeting.

Russia does not reply to German ultimatum expiring at noon.

French mobilisation ordered 3.40 p.m.

Germany, having ostensibly ordered general mobilisation 5 p.m., declares war on Russia 7.10 p.m.; makes out that Russians had crossed frontier in afternoon and begun war. (Declaration drafted before noon.)

Tsar wires to King George V that he had to mobilise on account of Serbia; but that though he had promised Kaiser he would not move troops during negotiations, Germany had suddenly declared war.

Austria at last moment appears accommodating to England.

Italy declines to take part in war, as being an aggressive one.

Sir Edward Grey protests against detention of British ships in Hamburg.

First Battalion holding Section II trenches from 25 to Convent Wall. The whole of tour very quiet. Platoons of 10 attached for 24 hrs in trenches.
Second Battalion: As a test of co-operation between infantry and artillery we were ordered to open rapid fire on German trenches at 1am calling upon artillery for assistance. This was done and gunners opened fire on German lines in 1.5 minutes after being called on. Enemy retaliated with rifle fire immediately and their guns opened fire about seven minutes afterwards. Fire was kept up for 10 minutes when all became quiet again. Remainder of night was quiet. (one man killed and one wounded). Very quiet day. Communication trenches and village shelled from 9 to 11pm. Burst of rifle fire afterwards. (Lieutenants Prosser and Neale joined). Germans removed all their large steel loophole plates from their trenches. All sniping in our front by enemy practically ceased. About 10.30pm the explosion of a mine was heard in or beyond the Givenchy section

On their way from Penkridge Bank Camp to Ripon, the Accrington Pals returned to East Lancashire in a recruiting visit that extended from 30th July to 5th August 1915. This remarkable film shows the battalion marching from Blackburn to Accrington on Sunday, 1st August 1915. It appears here by kind permission of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.